Source:
The India TimesUS workers angry as IBM jobs move to India
<9 May, 2007 l 0141 hrs ISTl Chidanand Rajghattal TIMES NEWS NETWORK>
WASHINGTON: In a development laden with irony and emblematic of a global economic shift, IBM, the world’s largest IT firm, is getting a roasting from American tech workers, including its own employees, for moving tens of thousands of jobs to India.
....The latest bout of outrage and venting was sparked after a column by a controversial tech columnist who writes under the name Robert Cringely, who disclosed on a public television website that IBM, according to his friends in the company, was getting ready to lay-off a staggering 150,000 workers in the US, with many of the jobs going to India....
"Thirteen hundred layoffs from a company with more than 350,000 workers is nothing, so the yawning press reaction is not unexpected. But this week’s ‘job action,’ as they refer to it inside IBM management, was as much as anything a rehearsal for what I understand are another over 100,000 or more layoffs to follow," he wrote.
IBM declined to comment on the claims but technology analysts dismissed it as hogwash. American tech workers, including many claiming to be current or laid-off IBM workers, buzzed angrily at the story on tech websites and blogs, many venting against corporate America and India.
"Unfortunately this is a continuing trend in all corporate America. Whether it be airlines outsourcing maintenance to off shore airlines (as my company does), or moving call centres to India (as my wife’s company is doing), the only bottom line is the bottom line, read one of the more polite and printable reactions.
Some workers, including a few Indians, suggested the Americans should bite the bullet. "Well, it is ‘International’ Business Machines after all," reminded one writer. "I think a good case can be made that if the company wants to do more business in India, Russia, Brazil, etc, then it would be a good idea for it to hire more people in these countries."
"Wake up and smell the . . . Darjeeling," suggested another, pointing out that jobs were outsourced and taken overseas in the 80’s and 90’s by the manufacturing industries and no company would be serving its’ shareholders by paying more to many to produce less." "And, like it or not, most working Americans have investment(s) in just such companies. Stop moaning and move on," he wrote.
Read more:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/Intl_Business/US_workers_angry_as_IBM_jobs_move_to_India/articleshow/2020258.cms
Whose next???? Oh but the stock market is at an all time high - and while Nero (Bush) fiddles Rome (our middle-class) burns!